Representatives of media proprietors in Guyana yesterday took their protest over the PPP government’s wholesale giveaway of Guyana’s airwaves to family and friends of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, to the United States Congress.
The media owners yesterday met in New York with US Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of the Eighth Congressional District in Brooklyn. Congressman Jeffries sits on the Appropriations and Judicial Committees of the United States House of Representatives and is a rising star in the US Democratic Party.
The Guyanese delegation comprised owner of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall, owner of Hoyte/Blackman TV, Dr. Noel Blackman and Mr. Charles Griffith of the Guyana Media Proprietors Association. The group was joined by Rickford Burke, President of the New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID).
The delegation informed the Congressman that former President Bharrat Jagdeo abused his powers and acted extra-constitutionally when he used his office to grant radio, television and cable broadcast licenses to his relatives, close friends and supporters while refusing to grant such licence to legitimate media entities that applied for over ten and 15 years in many instances.
The Congressman expressed grave concern over the discriminatory issuance and consolidation of broadcast licences in Guyana and said that such monopolization was a breach of democratic values and press freedom. It blocks the freedoms of expression and choice and threatens democracy.
Congressman Jeffries said that the issues were of particular concern to thousands of Guyanese in his district in Brooklyn and Queens and that as a consequence he will collaborate with other members of Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus to urge Secretary of State John Kerry to address and resolve this matter within the context of the broad array of policy options available to the US.
The Brooklyn Congressman left all options on the table for discussion; including a review of aid budgeted to Guyana under appropriations to the State Department as well as an examination of the Government of Guyana policy that grants licences to companies in Guyana that are basically pirates who openly steal US broadcast and copyrights as well as intellectual property rights for which they unconscionably then charge the Guyanese public exorbitant costs. These things violate US federal law.